dence and the arguing of points of law tend on the whole to make justice prevail.

There remain the men of letters and artists, an extremely small class outside a few Eastern cities, and the teachers, especially those in colleges and universities. The influence of literary men has been more felt through magazines than through books, for native authorship suffered severely till 1891 from the deluge of cheap English reprints. That of the teachers tells primarily on their pupils, and indirectly on the circles to which those pupils belong, or in which they work when they have left college. One is amused by the bitterness

affected scorn trying to disguise real fear-with which "college professors" are denounced by the professional politicians as unpractical, visionary, pharisaical, "kid-gloved," "high-toned," "un-American," the fact being that an impulse towards the improvement of party methods, civil service reform and tariff reform, has come from the universities, and been felt in the increased political activity of the better educated youth. The new generation of lawyers, clergymen, and journalists, of teachers in the higher schools, and indeed of business men also, so far as they receive a university education, have been inspired by the universities, particularly of course by the older and more highly developed institutions of the Eastern States, with a more serious and earnest view of politics than has prevailed among the richer classes since the strain of the Civil War passed away. Their horizon has been enlarged, their patriotism tempered by a sense of national shortcomings, and quickened by a higher ideal of national wellbeing. The confidence that all other prosperity will accompany material prosperity, the belief that good instincts are enough to guide nations through practical difficulties, errors which led astray so many worthy people in the last generation, are being dispelled, and a juster view of the great problems of democratic government presented. The seats of learning and education are at present among the most potent forces making for progress and the formation of sound opinion in the United States, and they increase daily in the excellence of their teachers no less than in the number of their students.

Before quitting this part of the subject a few general obser

vations are needed to supplement or sum up the results of the foregoing inquiry.

There is in the United States no such general opposition as in continental Europe of upper and lower classes, richer and poorer classes. There is no such jealousy or hostility as one finds in France between the bourgeoisie and the operatives. In many places class distinctions do exist for the purposes of social intercourse. But it is only in the larger cities that the line is sharply drawn between those who call themselves gentlemen and those others to whom, in talk among themselves, the former set would refuse this epithet.

There is no one class or set of men whose special function it is to form and lead opinion. The politicians certainly do not. Public opinion leads them.

Still less is there any governing class. The class whence most office-holders come corresponds, as respects education and refinement, to what would be called the lower middle class in Europe. But office-holders are not governors.

Such class issues as now exist or have recently existed, seldom, or to a small extent, coincide with party issues. They are usually toyed with by both parties alike, or if such a question becomes strong enough to be made the basis of a new party, that party will usually stand by itself apart from the two old and regular organizations.

In Europe, classes have become factors in politics either from interest or from passion. Legislation or administration. may have pressed hardly on a class, and the class has sought to defend and emancipate itself. Or its feelings may have been wounded by past injury or insult, and it may seek occasions for revenge. In America neither cause for the action of any class as a class can be said to exist.1 Hence classes have not been prime factors in American politics or in the formation of native political opinion. In the main, political questions proper have held the first place in a voter's mind, and ques

1 Even those who would persuade the working men that legislation is unjust to them seldom complain of what it does, but rather of what it omits or does not prevent. Any statute which bore harshly on labouring men would in America be repealed forthwith. There is at present in some States an agitation, conducted by "Labour" leaders, to alter the law which restrains what is called coercive "picketing" or molestation in trade disputes, but the laws have so far been upheld by the general sense of the community.

VOL. II

tions affecting his class the second.' The great strikes which have of late years convulsed large sections of the country, and the "labour" agitation which has accompanied them, have brought new elements of class passion and class interest upon the scene. But it is possible that these phenomena, which are mainly due to the presence of a mass of immigrants, still unassimilated, though invested with political power, may prove to be transitory.

The nation is not an aggregate of classes. They exist within it, but they do not make it up. You are not struck by their political significance as you would be in any European country. The people is one people, although it occupies a wider territory than any other nation, and is composed of elements from many quarters.

Even education makes less difference between various sections of the community than might be expected. One finds among the better instructed many of those prejudices and fallacies to which the European middle classes are supposed peculiarly liable. Among the less instructed of the native Americans, on the other hand, there is a comprehension of public affairs, a shrewdness of judgment, and a generally diffused interest in national welfare, exceeding that of the humbler classes in Europe.

This is a strong point of the nation. This is what has given buoyancy to the vessel of the State, and enabled her to carry with apparent, though perhaps with diminishing, ease the dead weight of ignorance which European emigration continues to throw upon her decks.

1 There are exceptions-e.g. tariff questions are foremost in the mind of manufacturers, Chinese questions in those of Californian working men, transportation questions often in those of farmers.

CHAPTER LXXXII

LOCAL TYPES OF OPINION - EAST, WEST, AND SOUTH

BOTH the general tendencies and the class tendencies in the development of public opinion which I have attempted to sketch, may be observed all over the vast area of the Union. Some, however, are more powerful in one region, others in another, while the local needs and feelings of each region tend to give a particular colour to its views and direction to its aims. One must therefore inquire into and endeavour to describe these local differences, so as, by duly allowing for them, to correct what has been stated generally with regard to the conditions under which opinion is formed, and the questions which evoke it.

In an earlier chapter I have classified the States into five groups, the North-Eastern or New England States, the Middle States, the North-Western States, the Southern States, and the States of the Pacific Slope. For the purposes of our present inquiry there is no material difference between the first two of these groups, but the differences between the others are significant. It is needless to add that there are, of course, abundance of local differences within these divisions. Pennsylvania, for instance, is for many purposes unlike Ohio. Georgia stands on a higher level than Louisiana. Nebraska is more raw than Illinois. To go into these minor points of divergence would involve a tedious discussion, and perhaps confuse the reader after all, so he must be asked to understand that this chapter endeavours to present only the general aspect which opinion wears in each section of the country, and that what is said of a section generally, is not meant to be taken as equally applicable to every State within it.

In the Eastern States the predominant influence is that of capitalists, manufacturers, merchants-in a word, of the com

mercial classes. The East finds the capital for great undertakings all over the country, particularly for the making of railroads, the stock of which is chiefly held by Eastern investors, and the presidents whereof often have their central office in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, though the line may traverse the Western or Southern States. The East also conducts the gigantic trade with Europe. It ships the grain and the cattle, the pork and the petroleum, it "finances" the shipping of much of the cotton, it receives nearly all the manufactured goods that Europe sends, as well as the emigrants from Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia. The arms of its great bankers and merchants stretch over the whole Union, making those commercial influences which rule in their own seat potent every where. Eastern opinion is therefore the most quickly and delicately sensitive to financial movements and European influences, as well as the most firmly bound to a pacific policy. As in the beginning of the century, trade interests made Massachusetts and Connecticut anxious to avoid a breach with England, to whose ports their vessels plied, so now, though the shipping which enters Eastern ports is chiefly European (British, Norwegian, German, French), the mercantile connections of American and European merchants and financiers are so close that an alarm of war might produce widespread disaster.

The East is also, being the oldest, the best educated and most intelligent quarter of the country. Not only does it contain more men of high culture, but the average of knowledge and thought (excluding the mob of the great cities and some backward districts in the hills of Pennsylvania) is higher than elsewhere. Its literary men and eminent teachers labour for the whole country, and its cities, which show the lowest element of the population in their rabble, show also the largest. number of men of light and leading in all professions. Although very able newspapers are published in the West as well as in the East, still the tone of Eastern political discussion is more generally dignified and serious than in the rest of

1 Some Germans and Italians enter by New Orleans or the ports of Texas. 2 The percentage of persons able to read and write is as high in some of the Western States, such as Iowa and Nebraska, as in New England, but this may be because the Irish and French Canadians depress the level of New England.